the first ceremonied art newsletter
01.30.25
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hello friends: welcome to ceremonied art
it’s dawn on the second day of the new moon: you can tell by the pale-morning, pre-sun palette of this newsletter.
i’ve chosen this day of moon newness to shyly crack the door open to a new vision i’ve been incubating for the past year and a half or so — ever since Wild Pigment Project moved into a different, quieter stage.
Wild Pigment Project: an electric, global, pigment-passionate network of people who grew conversations about what it means to collaborate with land and people in immersion with foraged pigments as paint, ink and dyes.
i have abundant thanks to share with all those of you who were part of Wild Pigment Project. if you follow this thanks link, you’ll find yourself at a robust version of the WPP site, complete with Pigment People Directory, the beloved pigment library, and the Ground Bright archive. i will continue to offer the ‘archived’ version of this site indefinitely.
newsletter, short version
some of you may not have time to read a long newsletter. i get it! for you, here’s the short version. i’ll try to offer a short version in these newsletters when they go long.
i’ve made a new portal, which is both a description of an art form, and an organization, called Ceremonied Art. the site pretty thoroughly explains what this whole thing is about. if nothing else, read — or, listen to — the invocation. i’ve made some very basic recordings of most of the site’s content, if listening works better for you. find recordings near the top of most pages.
the FAQ is a quick way to get your questions answered!
if you have time & inclination, now or ever, to send me a response to what you find, or if you want to join me in some way, write to me, Tilke, at connect@ceremoniedart.org. i will be waiting with lively anticipation.
much <3 & appreciation for reading ~~
tilke
now, below, the longer version…
what IS ceremonied art?
ceremonied is a word i’ve coined to describe the practice of engaging ceremony to “honor and care for all life as family or ‘kin.’” ceremony, here, means both specific practices and a state of being that takes responsibility to act towards all life as literal family. ceremonied art, then, is art of any form that engages ceremony to honor & care for all life as family.
of course, art that fits the ‘ceremonied art’ description as i define it is far from new, and is happening right now all over the world. ‘ceremonied art’ is the word that i use to describe this type of work, with the thought that this term might serve to bring those of us who practice it, or want to, together.
the word ‘ceremony’ is both a simple, neutral, universally human word, and a word with a lot of charged history, particularly in the context of the cultural appropriation of Indigenous heritages by settler colonizers. i’ve written at length about this, and thought long and hard about whether it is even acceptable for me to use the word ‘ceremonied,’ or apply it to art.
answer: i don’t know. as with Wild Pigment Project, i hope to bring out conversations about everything implicit in this word’s meaning: where we have been and where we’re going. i hope to help support paths to understanding and knowledge, repair, healing and interrelationships. as Patty Krawec points out in her concise and invigorating book, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting Our Past and Reimagining Our Future, recognizing all life as kin is not just about warm feelings of connection — it’s about changing yourself, and so changing the relationships you have with others.
if you feel drawn to this discussion, i warmly invite you to explore this new Ceremonied Art site. you’ll find definitions, an invocation, a manifesto, and an example of ceremonied art (mine, since i don’t want to hold this definition up to anyone else just yet).
intuition as kinship as ceremonied art
i want to say a bit about intuition. intuition is, for me, a big part of ceremonied art. why? because, personally speaking, stepping into responsibility for all life as family — or even, walking towards that state of being — means being able to listen to what other beings — or, inter-beings — have to say. right : ‘inter-being’ is another word i made up. not to be too cute about it — there was just no suitable word, and, saying this stuff a lot, i needed one. it’s a noun/adjective, not to be confused with Thich Nat Hahn’s beautiful descriptor, ‘interbeing’ (no hyphen), referring to the quality of interconnection between all life. here, ‘inter-being’ (with hyphen) refers to a collection of many different kinds of beings, from molecules to galaxies, including mineral, vegetable, animal, elemental and spirit beings. dandelions, lions, stars, ancestors of all kinds, nebula, and rivers make up a group of inter-beings. or, “i enjoy time with the inter-being community by the creek.” like that.
inter-beings speak through the body and through feelings. they also, frequently, dialog with humans using intuitive communication — what’s also known as ‘telepathy.’ telepathy happens via an inner sense of knowing or ‘seeing,’ through thoughts or images, with no direct external communication. i was raised to trust this form of communication, by parents who both practice it regularly. but most people today are not, and do not. and in spite of podcasts like the one that recently rose to the top of the charts ( a clear sign of public resonance ), the dominant, humancentric culture teaches us that intuitive communication cannot be scientifically proven and that those who say they practice it are basically mentally ill. an effective suppression tactic that has worked for milenia.
i think it’s fair to say that it’s hard to have a relationship with someone you don’t communicate with. if you do communicate, you can get to know each other, and once that happens, you might come to care for, or even, love each other. my experience with telepathy is that it only happens when there is love and connection present between communicating individuals. in my experience, where love exists, intuitive messaging can happen. where intuitive messaging happens, love increases. grow one and the other grows too.
collectively, the human capacity for intuitive communication is, i think, pretty atrophied. many of us artists love the world with all our hearts and try to, or want to move towards a state of responsible kinship. ceremonied art is art, based on those feeling for all beings, that expressly validates intuitive communication. could this validation, on a large scale, help raise our collective capacity to hear what other beings are saying? i’m not sure, but even the possibility is invigorating — and the input is certainly needed.
join us
i started down the road towards ceremonied art because so many of the people around me working with pigments found solace in affirming the intuitive dialogs we share with the beings that make up the dusts we touch as pigments. just to be able to say, together, ‘these pigments are beings’ can mean so much.
staring into the faces in the tiny grid screen of co-learners in the remote courses i initiate, i’ve seen tears of relief — among many other feelings — that mirror my own. and i’ve seen the power, the action, the move towards ceremonies of connection that this mutual validating can ignite.
to descend from, to be programed by, and / or to benefit from a perspective that some beings are more valuable, more alive, and more important than others, and that violence towards those others is acceptable, inevitable, or ignorable can make it difficult to consider other beings are capable of communication and wisdom-sharing. contradictions so extreme that the mind can’t hold them together can be paralyzing.
i know what the mind’s technologies can do, and they are truly impressive — as are its failures. what i don’t know is what might happen if human intuitive technologies became powerful, and existed in balance with our empirical accomplishments.
can ceremonied art — that is, any art that expressly centers acts of kinship and the validation of intuitive communication — be a focus to calibrate more collectively towards active kinship? one of the many related efforts to connect with all life as kin already emergent?
i don’t know, but the hour is late, and maybe, because of that, it’s a question worth asking.
i have so much thanks to offer for all the inspiration and encouragement, endless conversations, incredible books and loving support it’s taken to give me the energy, ideas and focus to write, build a website, design a round (visually cryptic, but pretty!) alphabet and generally be foolish enough to put Ceremonied Art out there in all its tender newness. if you’re a reader or a supporter of my past work, you’re in here, in my opinion, as much as you feel yourself to be — so, if you want some shiny props, go read the full thanks page.
please do get in touch if you're an artist making ceremonied artwork and you'd like to connect with an audience through this organization or, you're an artist, art supporter or art participant, and you'd like to fund, experience, or learn more about how to engage ceremonied art.
also get in touch — connect@ceremoniedart.org — if you are moved to respond, reflect or connect in any way. this is a new path, and i’d love to hear how it lands with you ~~~
in tenderness,
<3 tilke
